Show Me How It's Done: Warrior Rush
- Thread starter senor_k
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Peachrocks
Too Fast For Blazing
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- Jan 8, 2007
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On Monarch or higher its a waste of time unless your Inca and even on lower levels (outside of playing Inca) its a big risk and Hammi probably wasnt the best target because Bowmen get a bonus against Melee units.
I play Inca most of the time and almost never do Quechua rush because it is very cheap against the AI and defeats the point of the game.
I play Inca most of the time and almost never do Quechua rush because it is very cheap against the AI and defeats the point of the game.
TheMeInTeam
If A implies B...
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- Jan 26, 2008
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- 27,989
I forgot to say it earlier. If you're playing below monarch, and you want to CAPTURE the ai capitol with warriors, you literally open with this build:
Settle on 2 hammers
Warrior ---->Warrior ---->Warrior ---->Warrior ---->attack. Seriously. If they're within 10-15 tiles of your capitol and it's prince or below, you'll take it. Stand in the corner, move next to the city the turn you declare, attack the next turn. Very often the AI will have one warrior. Maybe it will have 2. Doesn't matter - it's way too early for it to have slavery on that level.
Congrats on your 2nd city!
.
Settle on 2 hammers
Warrior ---->Warrior ---->Warrior ---->Warrior ---->attack. Seriously. If they're within 10-15 tiles of your capitol and it's prince or below, you'll take it. Stand in the corner, move next to the city the turn you declare, attack the next turn. Very often the AI will have one warrior. Maybe it will have 2. Doesn't matter - it's way too early for it to have slavery on that level.
Congrats on your 2nd city!
.war ensemble
Warlord
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- Jun 11, 2008
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I normally don't warrior rush unless another civ is uncomfortably close to my capitol. Normally I'll axe-rush after settling one to two cities if there is a civ that would impede further expansion.
However, worker-stealing is something I do almost all the time. The perfect situation, in my opinion, is to steal the civ's first worker and when possible line two warriors opposite either side of the other civ's capital. That way they are stuck working unimproved tiles for years and you can simply wait until you have axes to easily axerush them. It's a surefire way, in my opinion, to totally screw up a whole civ's development. As your population would still be relatively low, war weariness shouldn't be a problem. What do you guys think of this strategy?
However, worker-stealing is something I do almost all the time. The perfect situation, in my opinion, is to steal the civ's first worker and when possible line two warriors opposite either side of the other civ's capital. That way they are stuck working unimproved tiles for years and you can simply wait until you have axes to easily axerush them. It's a surefire way, in my opinion, to totally screw up a whole civ's development. As your population would still be relatively low, war weariness shouldn't be a problem. What do you guys think of this strategy?
That's called a choke. It becomes harder on higher levels, but still remains viable. However, I believe it's usually done from one side only, because it is easier for the AI to break a 2-stack choke than a 1-stack choke with the same number of units. It's all situational, though...
With just 5 units attacking, results will fluctuate greatly. But 2 warriors take out 1 warrior much more than half the time I'd say. Maybe only half the time if the defender is 25% fortified on a hill. So your odds with 5 against 2 is probably at least 70-75%.
4 against 1 fortified on a hill would probably be about 97%, and 3 against 1 90% or so.
Still, with those odds, and not knowing if they'll have one or two defenders, you can't count on it. It is a relatively low cost risk though.
You may want to determine your decision to warrior rush or not based on whether they settled on a hill.
You should also consider the warrior rush more, if they start with a scout, or if you happened to see their starting warrior off exploring. In that case you are almost guaranteed to take the capital with 4 warriors.
4 against 1 fortified on a hill would probably be about 97%, and 3 against 1 90% or so.
Still, with those odds, and not knowing if they'll have one or two defenders, you can't count on it. It is a relatively low cost risk though.
You may want to determine your decision to warrior rush or not based on whether they settled on a hill.
You should also consider the warrior rush more, if they start with a scout, or if you happened to see their starting warrior off exploring. In that case you are almost guaranteed to take the capital with 4 warriors.
The problem with this, is once you attack the AI starts building archers hardcore. If you wait until you have 6 axes before you attack the first time, they may only have 2 defenders. If you attack right away, when those 6 axes get there, there will be 4-6 archers maybe. I'd rather flawlessly take the capital than have an extra worker earlier.
Choking is the best strategy hands down though in multiplayer, since most players don't ignore their defense, so holding off doesn't give you the benefit of only having 2 defenders that you have against the AI. And the reducing development is huge.
I just did warrior rush twice on noble and it went flawlessly. Against the dutch, and Saladin.
I started out with the intent to warrior rush, building warriors out the gate. I didn't know who I was going to attack, but I knew that on a pangaea map by the time I was gonna rush, I'd have found one or two people.
With the dutch I had 3 warriors to their 1, and even though they had +40% from culture (got religion), I wasted them.
With saladin I got 4 warriors there, since it was closer. Against the dutch one warrior was en route. I attacked one the fourth warrior got there, and conquered the city easily, which had one defender. In both cases the attack came at about turn 25-30 on normal speed.
Decide when you are going to decide to attack, so you can switch to a worker right away. If you are going to rush with 4, don't build a 5th-6th warrior, stop immediately at 4. You have to plan it well.
I started out with the intent to warrior rush, building warriors out the gate. I didn't know who I was going to attack, but I knew that on a pangaea map by the time I was gonna rush, I'd have found one or two people.
With the dutch I had 3 warriors to their 1, and even though they had +40% from culture (got religion), I wasted them.
With saladin I got 4 warriors there, since it was closer. Against the dutch one warrior was en route. I attacked one the fourth warrior got there, and conquered the city easily, which had one defender. In both cases the attack came at about turn 25-30 on normal speed.
Decide when you are going to decide to attack, so you can switch to a worker right away. If you are going to rush with 4, don't build a 5th-6th warrior, stop immediately at 4. You have to plan it well.
also, grow to size 2 asap, then stop. That is the most efficient for getting out 4-5 warriors.
For example, if you have a 3 corn, work it until size 2, then switch to 2 forest plains so you are stagnant. Don't bother going to size 3.
An exception would be a 2 food 2 hammer tile... plains deer. That would be better than the corn.
For example, if you have a 3 corn, work it until size 2, then switch to 2 forest plains so you are stagnant. Don't bother going to size 3.
An exception would be a 2 food 2 hammer tile... plains deer. That would be better than the corn.
You overestimate the difficulty of taking such a capital, while underestimating the value of stunting your neighbor's growth.
If the land around your target civ is open for yet other AIs to grab, then the choke accomplishes little, and it might be better to sue for peace, and then rush him at your leisure.
But in many other cases, the land is either yours or his, and in this case, having a nice millenia-long mostly-phony war can be very beneficial.
Being at war costs you very little this early in the game.
And by not suing for peace and redeclaring later on, you avoid any "You DoW'd our friend" demerits that can be the difference between a friendly and unfriendly future relationship with other AIs.
Besides, once the AI has built a "safe" number of Archers, it either sends a few your way (easily killed), or it tries to sneak out a settling stack.
In either case, once you've built your first four cities or so, building ten Swords to take out that capital should be a breeze.
And in the meanwhile, you've had extra Workers for a thousand years, you haven't had to race for good city spots, and you've found some additional sport for your barb-busting army men!
What I'm saying is that dismissing the Everlasting Choke out of hand can and will cost you. It is not something you'll use every game, but when done appropriately, you can easily double your territory for a very small cost and little risk.
(This assumes Monarch difficulty, if anyone wonders)
war ensemble
Warlord
- Joined
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- 146
You overestimate the difficulty of taking such a capital, while underestimating the value of stunting your neighbor's growth.
If the land around your target civ is open for yet other AIs to grab, then the choke accomplishes little, and it might be better to sue for peace, and then rush him at your leisure.
But in many other cases, the land is either yours or his, and in this case, having a nice millenia-long mostly-phony war can be very beneficial.
Being at war costs you very little this early in the game.
And by not suing for peace and redeclaring later on, you avoid any "You DoW'd our friend" demerits that can be the difference between a friendly and unfriendly future relationship with other AIs.
Besides, once the AI has built a "safe" number of Archers, it either sends a few your way (easily killed), or it tries to sneak out a settling stack.
In either case, once you've built your first four cities or so, building ten Swords to take out that capital should be a breeze.
And in the meanwhile, you've had extra Workers for a thousand years, you haven't had to race for good city spots, and you've found some additional sport for your barb-busting army men!
What I'm saying is that dismissing the Everlasting Choke out of hand can and will cost you. It is not something you'll use every game, but when done appropriately, you can easily double your territory for a very small cost and little risk.
(This assumes Monarch difficulty, if anyone wonders)
Great explanation of the choke. It works great for just absolutely halting one civ's development. It doesn't matter if they start building up archers, they'll be so technologically backwards it won't even matter.
I used this in my last game on a Medium and Small map, I think. Sent two warriors at Rome and two to sit outside Darius' capital. Then I quickly settled over the chokepoint to the South, stopping Hammurabi from developing into my territory until he could get ocean sailing. This allowed me to expand comfortably until Rome and Darius' capital were very close to my cities and then attacked, with either a stack of 10 macemen or axes, I'm not sure. But that stack managed to conquer both cities. Better than producing two settlers.
I pulled it off ONCE, but that was against the Spanish on Noble with my initial warrior that was out scouting and found Madrid, and found ALL of Izzy's warriors out scouting (in the direction of my undefended capital). Needless to say, I beelined and arrived at Madrid 2 turns before she got to my capital.
Dunno if that counts.
Hurrah opportunistic warrior rush!
Sorry to backtrack, but saw this and wanted to share a similar experience. Playing on Noble, Earth 18 civs, I started as Caesar. My starting warrior found Paris ungarded, and I raced in before his scouting warrior made it into Rome (whew). It was so small it was razed (but I resettled later). Then, sending 4 warriors, I knocked out Spain - she sent two of her three warriors to scout. Made for a great start to have 3 capitals. And all before Praets! It's fun to be lucky with a start like that.
Rubbaduck
Artificial waterfowl
I've done it with 1:0 ratio(Me:Them), several times It's not a rush though, more like a raid. You can occasionally bump into an enemy capital before the first border pop and before they're defending it(At noble that is), the city gets autorazed but it gives you much more room, and you can easily get rid of monty and the likes that way.
It's not a rush though, more like a raid. You can occasionally bump into an enemy capital before the first border pop and before they're defending it(At noble that is), the city gets autorazed but it gives you much more room, and you can easily get rid of monty and the likes that way.ratrangerm
Prince
Since I'm usually a Prince player with the occassional step back to Noble if I'm testing something out or trying a map I seldom play, I've done Warrior rushes several times. General tips to keep in mind:
* It works better against civs that start along a coast. This is because the civ is likely to priortize a Work Boat as an early build, hence there won't be more than one Warrior in that city early on.
* It's riskier against Aggressive civs because those civs tend to build units early, so you are more likely to find two Warriors in that city.
* It's easier to pull off if you are able to "see" into the civ's capital before the second border pop occurs, without having to enter said borders yourself. This, of course, depends on territory surrounding the capital.
*A civ that starts with Hunting, and thus with a Scout, can sometimes be an easier target because it doesn't have an extra Warrior exploring.
* Much depends on the distance between your capital and the civ's. If the other civ's capital is too far away, a Warrior rush is not only ineffective much of the time, but it also means a higher maintenance cost for the city should you capture it.
* I usually am able to make a Warrior rush successful with three Warriors, but a lot depends on your luck when Civ "rolls the dice" to determine what happens in combat when it comes to how much damage each Warrior inflicts on the defending Warrior. One time my first Warrior caused about 75 percent damage to the defending Warrior, but I've also had times in which the first Warrior caused no damage.
* As has been previously mentioned, you shouldn't try it on higher difficulty levels. I will say, on Prince, plenty of luck helped in terms of how combat went and what appeared to be the builds the civ was going with.
Oh, a funny story about one of my games in which I didn't do a Warrior rush, but an Axe rush... Suryavarman was my target and his cities had nothing but Warriors defending them... he had researched Iron Working at some point, but by the time he mined and hooked up his Iron, I pillaged it before he had a chance to build a single Axeman or Swordsman... and on top of that, Sury had NOT researched Archery, a typical AI priority tech. I think I saw _one_ Archer from Sury and that came when I went to take his final city.
Nothing to do with a Warrior rush, but I thought I'd share.
* It works better against civs that start along a coast. This is because the civ is likely to priortize a Work Boat as an early build, hence there won't be more than one Warrior in that city early on.
* It's riskier against Aggressive civs because those civs tend to build units early, so you are more likely to find two Warriors in that city.
* It's easier to pull off if you are able to "see" into the civ's capital before the second border pop occurs, without having to enter said borders yourself. This, of course, depends on territory surrounding the capital.
*A civ that starts with Hunting, and thus with a Scout, can sometimes be an easier target because it doesn't have an extra Warrior exploring.
* Much depends on the distance between your capital and the civ's. If the other civ's capital is too far away, a Warrior rush is not only ineffective much of the time, but it also means a higher maintenance cost for the city should you capture it.
* I usually am able to make a Warrior rush successful with three Warriors, but a lot depends on your luck when Civ "rolls the dice" to determine what happens in combat when it comes to how much damage each Warrior inflicts on the defending Warrior. One time my first Warrior caused about 75 percent damage to the defending Warrior, but I've also had times in which the first Warrior caused no damage.
* As has been previously mentioned, you shouldn't try it on higher difficulty levels. I will say, on Prince, plenty of luck helped in terms of how combat went and what appeared to be the builds the civ was going with.
Oh, a funny story about one of my games in which I didn't do a Warrior rush, but an Axe rush... Suryavarman was my target and his cities had nothing but Warriors defending them... he had researched Iron Working at some point, but by the time he mined and hooked up his Iron, I pillaged it before he had a chance to build a single Axeman or Swordsman... and on top of that, Sury had NOT researched Archery, a typical AI priority tech. I think I saw _one_ Archer from Sury and that came when I went to take his final city.
Nothing to do with a Warrior rush, but I thought I'd share.
